Doug wrote:
>j
>Japan has been unable to appropriate the serious sums n
>ecessary to
>socialize all that bad debt. Or, put another way, the Japanese ruling
>class has been unable to use the state to bail out Japanese
>capitalism.
I think a betterr way to put it is that the Japanese ruling class has been
unable to use the state to bail out Japanese capitalists while still
retaining the status and wealth of said capitalists. A bailout like the
US S&L bailout would require the liquidation of large banks and with it
the loss of status and institutional power of the banks owners. The
government has chosen instead to maintain the current distribution of
institutional power, but doing so violates international accounting norms,
which limits the international power of the Japanese ruling class.
>Compare it with the S&L/bank bailout in the U.S., in
>which something like $200 billion - no one can say exactly how much,
>really - was spent with almost no public debate (and little in the
>way of reforms).
>
>And what's with the Bank of Japan taking so long to ease in the early
>1980s? And that VAT increase in 1996?
>
>What's with the Japanese state? I thought their bureaucrats were so
>clever.
>
>Doug
>
